You'll see and hear a lot about this in the news over the next few days I would expect, but at a minimum this announcement means one clear thing:  Saddam Hussein was in violation of U.N. mandates and the treaty signed at the end of the first Gulf War that ended hostilities.  It is really irrelevant whether Saddam did or didn't have massive stockpiles.  He certainly had enough to make our most horrific nightmares come true by enabling terrorists to conduct an attack with Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) capable of killing many thousands of people.

That fear, that Saddam would give some of his WMD to terrorists to use against us his most hated enemy, was a driving force for our invasion and was taken by many to be the sole reason there was any legitimacy at all to the it.  The President expressed many other reasons for invading, but opponents focused only on the WMD aspect.    Opponents used the failure to find WMD early on to build opposition to the war, building the meme that it was all a lie to cover a desire to steal oil.  Of course it wasn't a lie and far from stealing oil we've spent huge sums trying to help Iraq, but then the core opposition was never about those facts or the truth anyways.  The evidence now shows clearly that Saddam had stockpiles, significant stockpiles, of WMD at his disposal and available to give to terrorists if he had chosen to do so.  If the lack of WMD made the war illegitimate then the reverse ought to be true.  I won't hold my breath.

Here's the link to a Fox News story discussing the news, with a link to the clip in a little box on the right under the Video tab right next to the Photo tab.  The video clip both shows the press conference announcing the 500 WMD found in Iraq since 2004 and a discussion of it.  Here's a bit of the text:

"We have found weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, chemical weapons," Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pa., said in a quickly called press conference late Wednesday afternoon.

Reading from a declassified portion of a report by the National Ground Intelligence Center, a Defense Department intelligence unit, Santorum said: "Since 2003, coalition forces have recovered approximately 500 weapons munitions which contain degraded mustard or sarin nerve agent. Despite many efforts to locate and destroy Iraq's pre-Gulf War chemical munitions, filled and unfilled pre-Gulf War chemical munitions are assessed to still exist."

Head on over and check it out if you are at all interested in the debate over the War in Iraq.  Get ready to hear lots of 'reports' questioning just how dangerous these weapons were or their age or whatever, trying to nitpick the whole core truth until it dies the death of a thousand cuts.  The elephant in the room will remain however, that 500 WMD found on accident by our military in Iraq so far is a significant stockpile of dangerous banned weapons, and the report states they have reason to believe there are many more left unfound in Iraq.

The hardcore militant Lefty types masquerading as 'antiwar peace activists' won't change their minds because of this.  Who really cares right?  They are a small fraction of our citizens anyway.  Reality is perception and perhaps that reality will change with more truths leaking out that are helpful to the War effort.  Citizens in the middle decide the elections anyway and they are more open to changing their minds based on facts.  Its a long way until the election in November, I suspect the ground will shift in a number of ways before then.